Nutritional Supplements Need Study, Not Federal Regulation

Richard A. Friedman's call for regulation of nutritional supplements by the Food and Drug Administration and its panels of academics is more dangerous than the current situation.

I'm a pediatrician and have been in practice long enough to know that academics can get disconnected from reality. They accept the null hypothesis (nothing is useful until proved to be, by double-blind studies), and apply it beyond its proper scope.

For example, the first evidence that folic acid deficiency caused neural tube defects in newborns was published 25 years ago, and subsequent studies supported this conclusion.

Even though many women of childbearing age got less than half the Recommended Dietary Allowance from their diets, the public health establishment took until last year to recommend folic acid supplementation for these women.

While desirable, the studies Dr. Friedman calls for are commercially justified only when the substance being tested is patentable, and natural substances are generally not patentable.

It is to be hoped that studies will be done to test other nutrients' value so that physicians and patients will have information on which to base their decisions. For pediatricians, examination of the relationship between magnesium deficiency and cerebral palsy is particularly urgent. KARL W. HESS, M.D. Cleveland, April 20, 1996